Matthias WEISS

GodÕs Acre

Came to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 1743 with the 'First Sea Congregation' from Herrnhaag, Germany via Holland. He became Bethlehem's first dyer (listed as a chemist) and no doubt the forest furnished his dyes.

From January 1744 to March 1747 they lived at Nazareth, Pa. in the Whitefield House.

Following closely after the first purchases of land by the Church in the present Northampton County, Pennsylvania, in the year 1741, two colonies were organized in Europe, which are known as the 'First' and 'Second Sea Congregations,' followed by four at later dates... There were four vessels, the Catherine, Little Strength, Irene, and Hope, owned by the Church and afloat at different dates, and their crews, with but few exceptions, were members of or connected with the Church. For the transportation of the colony organized in Germany for peopling the settlements on the Nazareth tract, and known as the 'Second Sea Congregation,' the Little Strength was purchased in England, and Capt. Nicolas Garrison appointed her Master. Late in August of 1743, she was dispatched to Rotterdam where the colonists were taken on board, and on Septemeber 17 sailed for New York, where she arrived after a passage of eighty-seven days. Matthias and Margaret C. Weiss were colonists aboard this ship.

Naturalization: 13 Mar 1762, Pennsylvania Naturalizations 2 SOUR S9 2 SOUR S24 1 HIST The Moravian Church 1 HIST 1 HIST The Moravian Church traces its origins to followers of John Hus, the Bohemian martyr who was burned at the stake in 1415, and dates its formal beginning from 1457, when one group of the Hussites took the Latin name of Unitas Fratrum, or Unity of the Brethren*. Persecuted for many years in central Europe, in the 17th century they were reduced to meeting in secret and handing down their faith to their children as part of the family tradition. Under the influence of Christian David, and inspired by the pietist movement, a group of families moved from Moravia to Saxony in 1722, where they found refuge on the estate of a young Lutheran nobleman, Count Nicholas von Zinzendorf, and founded a religious village which they named Herrnhut ("protected by the Lord"). The church was formally reorganized there in 1727. In 1735 an American settlement and mission to the Indians was begun in Georgia, but was abandoned after five years because of irreconcilable differences with the local government. Settlements in northeastern America were begun in 1740, and the congregation town of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was founded in 1742. It remains the church headquarters today. In the 1740s and 1750s the church brought several shiploads of settlers to Bethlehem and the other congregational communities, the so-called "Sea Congregations", who assembled in Europe and traveled together to America.

Maria Margaretha Catharina FIRNHABER

Regina NEUMAN

1. GEDCOM File : Robert G Nohavec 29 OCT 2002.

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